Kiev Memorial

Kiev Motherland memorial

The Motherland Monument is a monumental statue in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. The sculpture is a part of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War.

The stainless steel statue stands 62 m (203 ft) tall upon the museum main building with the overall structure measuring 102 m (335 ft) including its base and weighing 560 tonnes. The sword in the statue's right hand is 16 m (52 ft) long weighing 9 tonnes, with the left hand holding up a 13 by 8 m (43 by 26 ft) shield with the State Emblem of the Soviet Union. The memorial hall of the Museum displays marble plaques with carved names of more than 11,600 soldiers and over 200 workers of the home-front honored during the war with the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union and the Hero of Socialist Labor.

Plans for the statue were made in 1978, with construction beginning in 1979. The statue was opened in 1981 in a ceremony attended by Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev. In modern-day Kyiv, the statue remains controversial, with some claiming it should be pulled down and its metal used for more functional purposes.

This World War II memorial complex, which opened in 1981, includes a museum with 18 different galleries, an eternal flame, plaques honouring particularly heroic Soviet cities and an outdoor display containing military planes and other equipment from various wars. The centrepiece of it all is of course the massive titanium statue of a woman, 62m tall to be exact, grasping a 12-ton sword and a shield. Honouring Soviet defenders during World War II, its Socialist Realism style is an interesting contrast to the nearby ancient golden domes of Pechers’ka Lavra. If you’re just slightly worried about the ‘Mother of the Motherland’ being a tad too top-heavy, you’re not the only one. There have been scattered reports that the whole structure was not build very soundly and is danger of falling over, but so far so good.

This is a Mil Mi-24W Hind E.

This is a Yakovlev Yak 9P.

'01' is a Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-23M Flogger.

'02' is a Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-21PFM Fishbed.

'03' is a Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-17 Fresco.

This is a Lisunov Li-2T.

The ancient golden domes of Pechers’ka Lavra are beautiful and certainly worth a visit.

Maidan Nezalezhnosti or Independence Square is the main and the very central square in Kiev. Also there is an underground shopping mall right beneath the square called Globus. You can find pretty much everything down there. Some restaurants, shops, food stores etc. Also there is a food court with a wide selection of different kinds of food - Asian, European and American.

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